The First Crucio
by Only Sometimes
Summary: Years after the war, Neville fills Harry and Ron in on one of the darker moments they missed during what would have been their seventh year involving a bolder moment of a certain red head.


Hello, all. This is a bit of a plot bunny I've had for awhile, I decided to just spill it all out tonight instead of studying...

I am a Ginny fan and feel that she didn't get enough time in books so I decided to fill in a moment. Hope you like, but if you don't, well, there's really nothing I can do. So sorry.

* * *

Ron frowned down at his glass, wishing Hermione hadn't been watching him as he poured it so he could have added a bit more fire whiskey. He wasn't too fond of the 'get togethers' that were constantly going on. They'd started after the war, all celebrations, and had just kept happening. At least once a month, everyone got together.

Not to say he didn't love his friends and family, but after awhile, he would really like to have an extra Sunday to sleep. But there's no rest for the weary when married to Hermione. They'd been married a few years now, and their relationship was slightly more mature than what they'd had in school, slightly being the key word there.

"Needs more fire whiskey," Harry mumbled next to Ron, swirling his own cup around, making Ron grin to himself and Neville Longbottom grin in agreement.

"Can anyone recall why we're here once again?" Neville asked, watching the people they'd seen once a month for so long mingle.

"'Mione makes me." Ron answered, watching as his wife discussed who knows what Neville's wife.

"Ginny says she needs to get out more, feels trapped watching the baby all day." Harry answered, watching his own redheaded wife as she balanced their dark haired son on her hip.

"Big change from quidditch." Ron nodded. His sister had gone on maternity leave from the Holyhead Harpies, and it didn't seem likely she'd be able to get back on her broom.

"She's tough." Neville nodded, his eyes glazing over to memories not shared with the other two.

"Well, yeah, everyone's tough. Everyone we went to school with, anyway." Ron started, checking if Hermione was watching as he grabbed the bottle of fire whiskey. "Only way to make it through that last year…Don't know how you did it, Neville. To this day, don't know. Can't imagine gettin' that first Crucio…"

"Me? I didn't get the first Crucio." Neville looked up in surprise, making Ron slosh the bottle down his shirt and Harry look up with mild curiosity. "Didn't she ever tell you?"

"She who?" Ron questioned, although he and Harry had a sinking suspicion that they already knew who the answer was.

Neville felt himself shiver as he remembered a day in his seventh year…

* * *

The woman sent over with her brother by the Death Eaters to be teachers hated Ginny Weasley more than any other student, and she loathed muggleborns. She knew exactly what she would do to her, first chance she had. It wasn't just tat she was friends with mud bloods, or that her powers could have easily been an aid to her Dark Lord, or what had happened in her first year, it was her _attitude_.

While all the other students wouldn't look at her during her lesson, just stared down at their desks, almost shaking with fear, the Weasley girl stared her down, glaring at her with a haughty disgust that the so-called professor did not appreciate.

If the staring weren't bad enough, the girl got bold, she started refusing to do certain spells. It reached the point where she wouldn't do any work, she would just glare at the woman. Students around her started getting bolder, being more defiant. She knew she'd have to put the Weasley brat in her place. It was all a matter of timing…

The perfect time and place came one night in dinner. It was still fairly early in the year, students were yet to start disappearing, but adults outside of the castle were. It was early in the year, at this dinner that the Death Eater swooped at the chance to attack her least favorite student. It came rather unexpectedly, she had actually been going after another Gryffindor.

"I said take your seat, mudblood!" she had hissed at the older Creevey boy, as he had stood up at dinner to leave early. She had told him he wasn't allowed to leave, a rule she was making up for pure enjoyment.

"Don't you dare call him that." the Weasley had hissed, in a low but clear voice from where she was sitting across from him. The whole Hall went still, knowing that this wouldn't end well.

"What did you say, Weasley?" the woman glared down at the younger girl, feeling her face flush with the excitement of the possibilities this outburst would bring. She could feel her brother fidgeting next to her in anticipation.

"I said, don't you dare call him that." Ginny repeated, her voice louder as she raised herself out of her chair. The other students around her tried to pull her back into her seat, they could see the look in the professor's eyes, but the students failed to see the determination in the girl, unlike Neville.

Silently, he was begging her to sit down, but he forced his once soft, now slowly hardening face, to stay calm and ready. He knew better than to try and stop her.

"Take your seat, Miss Weasley!" McGonagall's voice rang out, trying to sound authoritative despite the clear sound of fear in her tone. She knew this intruder in her castle would be more than willing to make an example of her student.

The other professor dismissed McGonagall with a wave of her hand, never taking her eyes of off the lone, defiant student.

"I'll deal with her." she said, her malicious intentions clear.

"She is my student, in my house and I will deal with her as I see fit--"

"You will not, she is mine!" the newer teacher cut the veteran off, and at this point even the Slytherins were afraid for the redhead.

If Ginny Weasley was at all worried, her stony face did not let it show. Neville was trembling himself, but he couldn't tell if it was from rage or fear. Probably both.

"Surely, professor, a detention will be adequate for this misdemeanor." Headmaster Snape drawled, managing to stay as stoic as ever while secretly hoping that somehow, the Weasley girl would escape.

"Oh, no, she has defied me too many times in my classroom, I think a proper punishment is in order." the vicious woman growled, a sick smile slowly making it's way across her twisted face.

"Ginny, please!" a younger student cried out, several had tears running down their faces. This was a moment that none of them would be writing home about, and hopefully, none would remember.

"I won't sit down, she hasn't got enough powers to scare me. Haven't you seen her in class? Has trouble with Accio. Now, if she were as powerful as she is ugly, I might be a bit worried."

Where these words came from, Ginny didn't know, she felt like she was channeling the twins at the moment. She was afraid, but her adrenaline was pumping at the chance to face down this awful woman, at a chance to actually do something.

The professor opened her mouth to say something in anger, but quickly rethought it, and the look of anger that had temporarily gripped her. Instead, she calmly lifted her wand, her face showing satisfaction at what she was about to do. Ginny thought of grabbing her own wand, but thought better of it, she didn't need an excuse to be killed.

"Crucio."

The professor said it so casually and calmly, but the entire Hall flinched despite. Neville felt as if he'd just been slapped across the face, knowing how terrible that spell could truly be.

All eyes were on Ginny as she gritted her teeth, glaring still as her small body shook with pain. Her knees were trying to give, fall onto the merciful floor, but she was too stubborn to fall.

"Thought you were supposed to be powerful," Ginny laughed and gasped out, her face pale and forehead wet with sweat.

"CRUCIO!" the professor screamed this time, the spell powerful enough to send Ginny flying across the Hall. Several other professors stood up to go to her, and quite a few students lurched in their chairs, but were either stopped or thought better of it.

If that hadn't killed her, the Death Eater would be more than willing to finish her off along with whoever tried to help her.

Neville was shaking so much with rage that Lavender didn't know who to be more afraid of at that moment.

Two long, painful minutes later, Ginny lifted herself off from the stone floor. Her hand went straight to her busted lip that was dripping blood down her robes, but she smiled despite. She had so much pain coursing through her veins that it was all canceled out by whatever else was hurting her.

"Well, if that's all one of the _professors _can do to a student, this war's going to be a bit easier than I thought." Ginny finally said. She then turned on her heels and walked out of the Great Hall as if nothing had happened.

No one was allowed to leave until dismissed, and as soon as that happened, all of Gryffindor stampeded out, in search for their fallen hero. They almost ran right past her, she was leaning against the wall right next to the doors, slumped over.

"I fell." she stated weakly when she was found, her eyes clouded over with pain.

None of the students spoke of what had happened that day at dinner. It was for fear of being heard by the wrong person, a fear that was becoming more and more common. But whenever the Death Eaters started hassling a student, or a professor for that matter, the memory of the redhead walking out was clear.

Ginny never spoke of the incident, or the weeks of recovery that followed from all the bruises. Madame Pomfrey was forbidden from treating her, and close watch was kept on all of the potions, so the most that could be done was rest and ice. The only time she ever mentioned it was when she begged Neville to make sure it never got out, never got to her family.

"They'll make me leave!" she sobbed, "You don't understand, this is the only place I can fight! If I can't fight I'm just another victim! I can't go back to being defenseless!" she cried, burying her face in his chest.

* * *

"How could you not tell us?!" Ron roared as quietly as he could, outraged at being in the dark for so long. Years, it had been.

"She asked me not to," Neville shrugged, looking around uncomfortably.

"Why wouldn't she mention this? I'm her husband for Merlin's sake." Harry muttered, wondering what other secrets were in his wife's closet.  
"She never really liked to talk about it. No one did. Crucio's hurt, man. And so does the Great Hall floor." Neville answered, this being his turn to wish for more fire whiskey. He already regretted bringing it up.

"Ready, Harry?" Ginny's voice broke their silence, her face bright and clear as her young son tugged at her hair. She didn't even seem to notice.

"What?" Harry asked dumbly, not fully snapped out of his daze.

"Ready to leave? Remember, we have this little baby who needs to nap sometimes or else his mummy gets very, very cranky…" she joked, smiling up at her husband, blissfully unaware at what he had just found out.

"Right, right," Harry smiled back, taking the baby in his arms. "No one wants a cranky mummy."

They said their goodbyes and went back home, Harry occasionally staring at his wife in slight disbelief.

"Hermione," Ron started later that night, back at his own home, " you don't have any secrets from me, do you?"

"What on earth brings that up?" Hermione questioned, looking through her book shelf to find a book to read before bed that night.

"No reason, just talking to Neville today, about the things we missed at school, secrets, y'know? Got me wondering."

"Ronald, I don't really think we know anyone who's going to have very fascinating secrets. Merlin knows your sister can't keep a secret from me."

"Oh yeah? She ever talk about her sixth year to you? Y'know, the year we missed?" Ron was trying to sound casual. He knew when his wife got this engrossed in her vast collection of books she would let information slip out, especially since she was sleepy.

"She just told me it was horrid, too many rules, nothing really interesting. Why?" her tone of voice let Ron know she wasn't holding anything back, and he flopped back in bed, unsure if he was relieved at this.

"No reason, just got all nostalgic for the alma mater…" Ron answered, settling into bed.


End file.
